Printing Is Just Part of What We Do

As a full-service printing firm, we provide many business-to-business services you might not expect to find under one roof. Yes, we print just about any business form imaginable, but we also provide many collateral sales and marketing services to help you grow your business.

Here's a list of some popular services we provide.

Welcome to Our Amazing Resource Library!

Did you know we have a large collection of online resources available for your creative inspiration? Our free resource library includes creative graphic design ideas, sales and marketing solutions, management ideas, and best practices for managing a successful company.

When You Need Help, You Can Find it Here

Got a question about printing or need some help preparing your files for print? You might not know much about printing, but we do, and we're only too happy to share that knowledge, experience, and advice with you. After all, we want to make sure you look good on paper.

Important Details

Not Your Ordinary Neighborhood Printing Firm

To say B&B Express Printing, Inc. purchases and prints on beautiful papers for businesses around the world is very true. That's the essence of what we do - but it hardly tells the whole story.

We’re So Much More Than What We Print

We're not just enthusiastic printers of business forms and sales and marketing materials, we're dedicated graphic arts professionals who seek to use our creative skills to improve the results of your printed documents and sales and marketing materials. How can we help you reach your goals?

Fine Tuning Typography

The fine line between ordinary and extraordinary design lies in the details. While great attention to detail is placed on layout, often overlooked in document creation is the text itself. In the days of yore, professional typographers would peer over the printing press to ensure that the typeset was truly a work of art. Typographers would, quite literally, make certain that the "i"s were dotted and the "t"s were crossed.

While typographers in the print shop may have fallen to the wayside, typographers at digital foundries take special care to craft highly functional pieces of digital type that can truly sparkle in the right hands. However, unless you know where they have hidden their tools, your electronic documents may be missing their finery. In QuarkXpress 8, the ability to bring out the best of typography are just a few quick clicks away.

Working With Special Characters.What you see on your keyboard is just the start of what lays hidden within many fonts. Bullets, accented characters, monetary symbols, and much more lurk just beneath the surface. Some special characters even include multiple shapes for you to chose from to bring out the best in your document. These special characters can be found in the Glyphs pallet of the Windows Menu.

To add a special character, open up the Glyphs pallet in the Window menu, and then scroll to locate the character you would like to use. Double-click the glyph and it will be placed in your document. If you have a few glyphs you find yourself favoring, you may wish to save them in the Favorite Glyphs area at the bottom of the Glyph Pallet by dragging and dropping them into the open boxes.

Creating FractionsWhile you can easily create fractions using numbers and a slash, the results can lack the refinement that actual fractions lend to a document. For a more polished approach, you can utilize QuarkXpress' built in functionality to give your fractions the detail they so highly deserve.

To create your fraction, simply highlight your text, and chose Style > Type Style > Make Fraction. This will convert those unsightly displays of 1/ 2 and 1/ 4 into more elegant 1/2 and 1/4. Even complex fractions can be expressed with a more refined appearance with just a few quick clicks of the mouse.

Applying Ligatures
Often times, certain combinations of letters can cause your type to look a bit more shabby than it should. Notoriously, "fl"s and "fi"s can become crowded with some typefaces. Ligatures are special glyphs that represent a character pair, and can help remove the awkwardness to those type combinations. Fonts can easily be substituted with ligatures automatically in QuarkXpress if you know where to look. Simply click on Enable Ligatures in the Character tab of the Measurements pallet.

Typography may no longer be the first thing you think of in document creation. But thanks to QuarkXpress 8, your documents can still have the look of "hands on" craftsmanship like that of the typesetters of old. With a little attention to detail and a little knowledge of QuarkXpress' powerful tools, you can bring back the fine art of typography to your documents.

Get up to speed quickly with this accessible new guide on QuarkXPress 8 for both print and Web workflows. QuarkXPress experts Kelly Kordes Anton and John Cruise provide the essential techniques that you need in an easy-to-use format. From the basics of creating new layouts to using QuarkXPress's superior typographic tools, this book covers the primary features for graphic designers and Web publishers--whether new to the program or returning again. Expert tips and the most efficient approach for your real-world workflow demands make this book a valuable resource.

e-commerce summaries

Online Estimating

Need an estimate on a printing project, before you commit to having it done? Whether you're planning a simple piece with few requirements or a more complex project that involves advanced services such as design, bindery, mailing, or marketing, we'll provide a quick, accurate estimate to help you plan your budget.

Online Ordering

Order your printing safely and securely straight from our website. Our order forms make it easy, and reorders are a breeze. Plus, you can track your orders all the way through to completion and view your complete order history anytime. If you order the same printing products frequently, ask us about creating a document library to save even more time.

Send a File

Everyone uses the Internet to exchange information. But what if the information you need to exchange is in the form of a huge graphic file? No problem! Our website lets you send files of virtually any size effortlessly and securely, without the hassle of a traditional FTP. Plus, our email confirmation and online job tracking system eliminate the worry of not knowing if the file made it through.

Online Proofing

We all want things to be quick and easy, don't we? Our online proofing system is both. In addition to the instant proofing options available with uDesignIT! and FastTrack, we provide online digital proofs for orders that require them. When a proof is ready, we email a link, so you can view the proof securely on our website. While there, you can approve the proof, reject it, or suggest changes - all from the same secure screen. What could be simpler than that?

Customer Portals

The first time you do business on our website, we'll automatically create an account for you in our Online Print Center. There, you'll be able to track orders, view order histories, update credentials, view proofs, and reorder your printing. We can even create a branded portal for your entire organization if you'd like, complete with branches, document libraries, company managers, order approval hierarchies, custom notifications, inventory management, and more.

e-commerce function

Document Library

The document library is our term for the set of online order forms unique to your company or to specific departments or branches within your organization. Each item represents a specific printed piece. For example, if you have 10 different printed forms that get used throughout your company, you'd have 10 separate document library items set up - one for each form. Document libraries make it easy to order, track, and inventory your most frequently used printed items.

uDesignIT!

uDesignIT! makes it easy to personalize "templated" items, such as business cards, that are unique to your organization. Items appear as part of your document library and include an instant proof that updates automatically as you fill out the form. Changes are not limited to text alone. Images, backgrounds, colors, and fonts can all be made variable, as well, for even greater flexibility.

FastTrack

Want a simple way to send us your digital files without worrying about fonts and images getting left behind? Want to "print" your files straight to our website from within any program-even if we don't have the same software, version, or fonts as you? Want to rest easy knowing your printing will look exactly like what you see onscreen? Want real-time feedback that lets you troubleshoot and eliminate production snags before they happen? Of course you do. We can help.

DesignEdit

If you're looking for beautiful design in a hurry, DesignEdit is for you. DesignEdit provides thousands of ready-to-use templates you can personalize to create print pieces for yourself or your company, all from the comfort of your own computer. No special software or graphic arts degree required. The DesignEdit online editor allows you to personalize the templates with graphics from our library of over 14 million high-quality images. You can even add your own text and images if you prefer. Either way, the end result will be a beautiful creation as unique as you.

resource summaries

White Papers

Running a successful business can be challenging. We're here to help. Our carefully researched and thoughtfully written reports cover topics important to small business owners and managers facing the challenges of doing business in the 21st century.

The Ideas Collection

We all have times when we could use a little inspiration in our work. If you're running short on ideas, we're here to help with articles and insights meant to ignite your creative fire. From marketing tips to creative how-to's, you're sure to find something to spark the imagination.

What's New?

We live in an age of unprecedented access to information. Unfortunately, trying to keep track of all that data can be overwhelming. Twice a week, we provide executive summaries of some of the most interesting articles and posts we find from popular business websites and blogs.

Printer@Work

The last thing you need is another e-newsletter, right? Wrong. Especially when that newsletter delivers timely tips for marketing your products, managing technologies, and making the most of your printing budget. Printer@Work will add value to your inbox, not clutter. Sign up today.

Our List of Greatest Treasures

We all have websites we rely on every day for information relevant to our businesses and lives. Then there are the exceptional sites -- the ones we stumble on occasionally that are sooooooooooooo good, we make sure to save them in a special place for future reference. Over the years, we've built up a pretty good trove of website gold, and now we're sharing that bounty with you, our customers.

Real-world definitions for common printing and graphic-arts industry words

Glossary of Printing Terms

Confused by a term you've seen on our website or heard a printer use when describing your printing? Find real-world definitions for all those printing and graphic-arts terms that have you stumped and scratching your head.

Popular Graphic Arts Software

Keeping track of the latest software upgrades is enough to drive anybody crazy... unless you have access to our easy-to-use list of the most popular graphic arts software. What a helpful reference tool!